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[waitingonsunday]

When I lived in Florida, my family home was situated on a barrier island less than a mile across. If the wind blew in from the east across the Atlantic Ocean with a drizzle, the air had a salty tang; if a strong wind came from the west over the Banana River with rain, it brought the scent of dead fish. The latter gave me a headache. I'd hide in my

Comments

[solteronita]

I love the flow of your writing.

I didn't used to be afraid of lightning until Todd was nearly struck (it hit near him and knocked him to the ground) while he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Yikes!

[waitingonsunday]

Thank you!

And holy crap! That would definitely make me wary, too. Was he okay other than being knocked over? Either way, I'm pretty sure I'd hide inside and away from all electronic devices at the mere rumble of distant thunder.

[twicet]

I really enjoyed reading that.

There are certain smell which come and immediately I am back in my childhood home.

I love storms they release an energy that appeals to me.

[waitingonsunday]

Thanks, I'm glad to hear it! :)

Nothing takes me back like smells. When I lived in Colorado, something my dad would mow over in the yard smelled like coleslaw to me. I hated coleslaw (still do) and the smell made me sick. But every once in a while, I catch that in the air when someone's mowing in the spring and it makes me so happy.

And I'm the same way. Even now, when there's a storm, I'll go to a dark part of the house to be alone and watch the lightning. I don't stand at the window anymore, but I open the blinds and get comfortable, watch from across the room. There really is something awe-inspiring about all the power behind it. That's also how I feel about tornadoes...not that I stand around watching those, but sometimes I entertain the idea of being a stormchaser and also not being a huge wuss.

[bib_specialist]

Awww. I can see you as a little girl, at the window, watching the lightning, screaming and ducking.

You are indeed a master writer, dear. If you ever put together all these LJ posts, it would probably read something like Karl Ove Knausgaard’s "My Struggle."

[waitingonsunday]

I'll bet it was really annoying.

And I'm very flattered, thank you! Now I'm trying to think of a less heavy title for my fake, hypothetical collection of musings. Like My Name's Not Jennifer, Okay?

[tabular_rasa]

This is a lovely and poetic post! Of course, I love just about anything celebrating the joy of weather, especially storms

[waitingonsunday]

Thank you! And to this day, I'm a sucker for storms.

There's this two-hour dead area on the interstate between here and Raleigh and if the wind's blowing right, there's a terrible smell through a certain section of it. I've never given it much thought beyond, Gross, but we were passing that way on Halloween and a friend who grew up on a farm said, "That's a pig farm. Smells like home. Terrible, isn't it?" It really, really is

[tabular_rasa]

LA got a thunderstorm like once every 2 years and it depressed the hell out of me. I'm serious when I say one of the reasons I moved back to the Midwest is the weather, particularly the storms. They honestly energize me. Though I'm always torn between wanting to watch them and being really conscious of safety . . . like the time I missed getting to see a funnel cloud over the lake because I was in the basement watching the weather report >.<

[waitingonsunday]

I'm the same way. We get a few good summer storms here, but there's something about that rush from Midwestern storms that I miss. At the same time, I went through a few tornadoes there and for years after, a rumble of thunder was enough to send me into a panic attack.

Where I live now, we almost never see tornadic weather, so even when an alert comes up, everyone else ignores it while I obsessively check weather reports. But! If we get severe weather alerts and then the storm misses us, I'm so disappointed. It's such a fine line. I want the adrenaline rush, I just don't want, you know, people's homes demolished by tornadoes and whatnot.

[richaarde]

1 1/2 years ago, I went to visit my brother in California. We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Luis Obispo to Monterey. (Highly recommend this drive, btw, if you ever find yourself on the west coast) There was one particular point where you can get out of your car and walk around on a path and see an inaccessible beach and the rugged California coastline.

The one thing that stuck out about walking around over there was the smell. It was a surprisingly strong, sweet cedary smell, that eminated from the plant life. It was a very clean and invigorating smell that I have never experienced before or since. If I could have bottled that smell and taken it with me, I would have.

I think this was the smell that detergent and air freshener makers strive for, but I have yet to smell one that even comes close to the original.

[richaarde]

BTW, the beach you see in the Google Street View in my link is inaccessible. Maybe it's better that it's inaccessible, because I shudder to think of the garbage and cigarette butts that would be left behind at such a pristine place.

[waitingonsunday]

This looks and sounds (smells?) amazing. I love when the memory of a scent can stick with me like that. The library I went to as a small child had a very specific air to it, particularly on the stairwell to the second floor, and every once in a long, long while, in an old building, I encounter the smell again. I recognize it immediately.

[richaarde]

Musty old building is an interesting smell, too.

Where I was serving jury duty, the Hall of Records building was between the parking deck and the courthouse. This is an old building, built in the 1920s, which holds a bunch of county offices. I would have to traverse the building every day, and the building definitely had that musty old building smell.